Reply #16: I'll admit that "soft brained hippy nonsense" was too far.

[ContinentalOp]

But while I agree with a lot of that stuff in theory I don't think it works within the reality of American politics. It's the old bringing a knife to a gunfight thing.

Let's take the media for example. In the face of a propaganda outlet like Fox News, what is the correct response? We all want the ideal of a fair and impartial news media. Should we put our faith in individual journalists to remain professional and unbiased and hopefully, over time, win out over the rest of the noise? Does the answer lie in groups like Media Matters or FAIR who can act as sober and persistent watchdogs? Or does it benefit us more to have somebody like Keith Olbermann to be our own biased loudmouth?

I think too often this attitude of "be the change," "don't stoop to their level" confuses the tactics for the message. The purple band-aids were not inherently wrong or despicable. They were a highly visual, memorable bit of political theater. The message they were conveying was a lie though. There's no reason why we can't use an equivalent stunt that actually conveys the truth. Maybe it's "nasty" or "too personal" and maybe it lowers the political discourse below the lofty ideal of rational discourse on important issues. But it works, and it really doesn't fundamentally go against anything I believe in as a liberal.